The night before Thanksgiving is always a fun one, especially if you’re young enough to enjoy the game somewhere celebrating the night before. As it were, the Blackhawks will be closer to full strength tonight than they’ve been in three weeks with one key player returning to the lineup. But it isn’t the veteran we thought would come back first based on comments late last week.
It looks like Seth Jones will return to the lineup tonight in his hometown against the Stars. Jones was supposed to miss this week (at least) because his thumb injury wasn’t quite there yet and they were going to hit the pause button and do some more x-rays after Thanksgiving, but apparently Dallas is a big enough reason for Jones to get back on the ice. He missed ten games on IR.
Tyler Johnson, on the other hand, was supposed to be an option for Sunday, but wasn’t at practice on Tuesday (he skated before the rest of the team). Head coach Luke Richardson said after the skate that he isn’t 100 percent yet, so they aren’t going to rush him. With 13 forwards already on the NHL roster, this at least buys them a little more time before they need to make a decision up front and with their eight active defensemen.
This is a nice read from Scott Powers this morning about the how and why the Rockford IceHogs went to a more… “athletic” appearing mascot and tweaked their primary logo this summer. Here’s what IceHogs vice president of marketing, content and operations Mike Peck said about the logo change. He’s a great voice to speak on behalf of the organization because he’s played so many roles for Rockford. The team was born in 1999, Peck joined in 2001 and he’s still there.
“I think the logo that we had was very reminiscent of the late ’90s, early 2000s, when a lot of minor-league logos in particular were developed. And they were very busy. It’s not that we didn’t like the logo. We just felt it was tempting to kind of modernize it a little bit.”
When I read this tweet yesterday it felt so cliché, but then the story was amazing. Ben Pope talked to Filip Roos and Arvid Söderblom about how and where they find some comforts of home as NHL rookies this season. A lot of fans probably didn’t recognize that the two played together as teenagers in Sweden a few years back. And Pope confirmed that Söderblom may have aided Roos’ selection process when he was weighing his NHL options this past summer. Now they’re friends again one and off the ice.
Soderblom has served as Roos’ Chicago tour guide and offers restaurant recommendations. He even helped Roos set up his U.S. phone number.
And when they’re especially missing home, they’ve learned to love visits to IKEA — to buy furniture and meatballs.
If you’re looking for some late afternoon/early evening hockey, the Blackhawks will have four (4) prospects in action in one place at 4 (four) PM CT. Ryder Rolston, Landon Slaggert and Notre Dame invade Boston University to take on Drew Commesso and Ryan Greene.
Colton Dach won’t play tonight because he’s suspended.
This would be AWESOME!
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